Collectables

Dunhill Aquarium table lighters painted by Margaret Bennett and husband Alan in the 1950s-60s remain popular among collectors in these non-smoking days.

Bumper selection of lots offered in Gloucestershire auction house Dominic Winter provides wide-ranging array

Rated a museum-quality piece, this rare c.1902 spirit-fired Märklin fire engine led the field at toys specialist Wallis & Wallis (24% buyer’s premium).

Bible sold for £160,000 at auction is reputed to be that taken by Charles I to his execution in 1649

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions.

The handwritten journal of Colonel Christopher Rigby, recording his success in securing freedom for thousands of slaves in east Africa, was the highlight of a collection of his papers sold in London.

A copy of the very first issue of Captain America soared to £320,000 (£235,640) at Heritage Auctions.

The world record for a George Cross has been broken by a medal awarded to a courageous British soldier who died in captivity during the Korean War.

With all 80 lots getting away – 79 to a single UK collector – a group of walking sticks totalled more than £40,000 at Charterhouse (25% buyer’s premium).

A manuscript volume sold for £4200 was the main attraction of a sale held by Crow’s (22% buyer’s premium) of Dorking.

A naval logbook kept by Matthew Perry offered in New York covered a very eventful period in this distinguished mariner’s career.

Despite the near absence of face-to-face trading, 2020 was a record year for London’s coins and medals auction houses with combined total sales just shy of £53m.

This coin, from the period known as ‘The Anarchy’, was discovered by a metal detectorist in a Yorkshire field in March.

Our regular listing of British and Irish book auctions.

Sold for a record €260,000 (£234,235) in Hamburg was a copy of Lucas Janszoon Waghenaer’s Speculum nauticum super navigatione maris occidentalis…

In the absence of face-to-face contact, 2020 was a difficult year for the numismatics market as a whole... but the auction business found a way to thrive.

A record for a British token was set at Dix Noonan Webb on May 26 when this copper coin – the only specimen known in commerce – took £7000 (estimate £400-500).

Work produced in Brussels in the 1530s by a master of illumination soars way over estimate in Sotheby's London auction

Showing that not all the best UK numismatic action takes place in London, the first known gold coin of Caratacus – unearthed by a metal detectorist a year earlier in a Berkshire field – sold at auction for a record £71,000 an auction in Norwich.